Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Mexico Awakens: Dual Power?

One of the most important events in the world today is the upsurge of political activity that has been occuring in Mexico, since the recent election. I'm not sure why it's not covered more online. The possible ramifications are enormous. Please read this analysis The Revolutionary Reawakening of Mexico, written by Alan Woods of the Worker's International League.

Events went into overdrive, almost by accident. The spark was the national elections. It was time to get rid of Vincente Fox and PAN, the lackey of the US. Fox's party was represented by Felipe Calderon, a former energy minister and free market czar. They rallied to the PRD and its leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Obrador's popularity is not in a Marxist program. He is not challenging capitalism. His stands are reformist. What matters is how he is perceived. It is like the Evo Morales factor. It's not about Obrador, as the direction his following goes. To the peasant in Mexico, Obrador is "for the poor people".

The election victory of Caulderon as declared by Washington and the European Union is denied by Obrador's supporters. They believe the breath of the voter fraud is gigantic, even by Mexican standards. In July an election protest encamoment in Mexico City was seven miles long.

Obrador has called for an alternative government. He will convene a new congress soon. The contradiction between two governments, means eventually one must go.

At the same time in a state called Oaxaca (pronounced wa-ha-ka) in Mexico, the teachers went on strike. The corrupt governor Ulizes Ruiz Ortiz used armed thugs and teargas against the protesters. Ortiz has a history of accusations against him, involving murder, kidnapping and torture. The teachers received widespread support. They created an assembly, which provides services and security in Oaxaca, similar to a Soviet. That is only one state.

While Washington is following events, the situation intensifies. If Washington openly intervened, imagine how it would effect US big cities?

42 comments:

I always felt the Neo-Con agenda here was far better served by Mexico remaining mired in poverty. All the deceptive talk about free trade was just a means to allow some businesses to locate there and take advantage of the cheap labor and lax environmental and other regulations. That well has about run dry so they are leaving for greener pastures, i.e., China, and left Mexico no better off than before, insofar as the life of it's average citizen goes.

Obrador ran on the dissafection of that, and Washington views him with a wary eye. Yet, people like him could conceivably slowly build the Mexican economy, and do a great deal toward lessenning the waves of illegal immigrants. Why should Mexicans leave their country in droves, go into a foreign land where they work like dogs at bottom tier jobs, if they can stay in their own country, villages, etc., with their families, and in the long run do just as well, probably better?

Even if they feared the type of political climate people like Obrador, and even people like "Delegate Zero", might bring, how the hell could it be any worse than what is going on now?

I don't know if the election was stolen or not, but the protests are at least a reflection of the disgust and anger Mexicans feel toward the way they've been slighted and abused by a handful of elites, and that can't be anything but good. Of course, certain forces could aggravate the situation to the point that it could turn into a real explosion. Maybe even a civil war. When or if that happens, if anybody thinks illegal immigration is out of control now, and bad-as I certainly do-you ain't seen nothing yet.

His use of the phrase "dual power" is particularly strange since the term surely refers to an advanced stage in the working class taking control, where there is momentary equilibrium in the class conflict.

But in Mexico the "second president" (Obrador) has no power at all over state organs, just a very militant, large following.

Is there any proof that the people are becoming more radical, or that the workers are asserting themselves as an independent agent?

As detailed on my blog, at Hands off Venezuela this week Labour Left MP Jeremy Corbyn said nothing about what Obrador is actually for, but called for solidarity with him anyway.

The class lines are quite blurred in reality, poor people being interposed with "the working class", indigenous people identifying with the Zapatistas (what are called sectarians) etc.Even if Obrador did get the most votes,it was by a narrow margin ,indicating proletariat support is split.

So while I certainly support the movement towards socialism, it is not like the situation in Venezuela where the reform candidate ,Chavez, gets overwhelming support.Nor is it likely a political party like PRD can sieze power, and all that entails.This movement must engage a much greater majority before a program of radical reform can be enacted.

It would have been more honest to at least mention that both candidates only got 36.1 to 37.1% of the vote. So neither of them would have a mandate for any reforms.

Troutsky is right (it's not often I can say that). Actually, the Mexican elections results are almost identical to the Chilean election results in 1970 (Allende got only 36.2 percent to his conservative opponent's 34.9). And we all know how that ended...

The possibilty of the Alamo avenged

A history lesson for you: the Mexicans WON the battle of Alamo. So 'Alamo avenged' means the Americans getting their revenge on the Mexicans (and they actually got it in 1847 when they conquered Mexico City). And I don't think that's what you meant...

Moving towards the poor, that is what makes Obrador important. That he and his people have not given up adds more strenght to the governments that are also moving that way. Who knows where this will end, but at least the struggle is on.

Moving towards the poor, that is what makes Obrador important. That he and his people have not given up adds more strenght to the governments that are also moving that way. Who knows where this will end, but at least the struggle is on.

"As detailed on my blog, at Hands off Venezuela this week Labour Left MP Jeremy Corbyn said nothing about what Obrador is actually for, but called for solidarity with him anyway."

I'm certainly no expert on Mexico, but my sense is that the relevant issue is not really a matter of what Lopez Obrador is "for." It's a matter where the forces of history are taking Lopez Obrador and the movement behind him. The disputed election in Mexico has converted Lopez Obrador into a leader of a mass movement that is bent on overhauling the country's political institutions. As John Ross writes, "Swindled out of the presidency by fraud this past July 2, the party of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO)--the Party of the Democratic Revolution or PRD-- appears to have broken with the political class and traditional cronyism." In other words, the historical turn of events has converted the PRD --now Mexico's second-largest party-- into a political force that does not recognize the country's political institutions as legitimate. What Lopez Obrador and his party are "for" is contingent upon what routes are available to them to build a sufficiently powerful mass movement to challenge Calderon and the country's political institutions. What a leader of a mass movement is "for" (or against) is contingent upon the class nature of alliances available to him or her. I believe that the disputed election is a fundamentally radicalizing event insofar as it separates the wheat from the chaff; the movement's political character will be determined by those sectors of society that are truly committed to social and political change, not by middle-of-the road equivocators whose interests are too tied up with the system for them to actually challenge its basic institutions.

Justin is spot on identifying the forces in play right now.We can imagine a few of the possible scenarios, using historical references, including massive labor unrest and strikes, especially in the oil sector, which might have a fatally de-stabilizing effect on the current regime.I would also imagine that much rests on how the military and police apparatus falls out, and to what degree western powers are willing to intervene.You can bet the house that there is plenty of covert influence, infiltration, and clandestine work taking place.

Another scenario would be bourgeois liberal reforms to "address" poverty and inequality, a manufactured crisis to "unite the people", or some pretence for violent repression using the "war on terror" or race or some such.

Another scenario would be a push for constitutional reforms such as we saw in Venezuela.I am also no expert on Mexico but I know that the "creative destruction" left in the wake of NAFTA also created some pissed off and organized proletariat.

My take as a radical in Mexico beholden to no one was expressed on the Further Left Forum. It appears as the long lone comment on a July 11, 2006 archived Forum article titled Who Really Won. It differs from most of what I see above and have read elsewhere but does offer one view from the inside. It might be worth reading, if thoughts on Mexico's streets will have meaning to analysts outside. It not, that's ok. We're used to that and know how to live with it, the same way we do government, ignore it. Ni modo.

In the US media there was little word and even no word about the situation in Mexico; so I had to read foreign newspapers to find out what was happening over there. In Europe in national newspapers such as Le Monde, die Welt, I read that the mexican elections had been cheated by the CIA despite the european supervision. In history the CIA and other secret organizations do supervise or watch elections on different continents (Central Asia, Italy) and people usually sack the CIA when a new global challenger has been defeated.

For the case of Obrador from Mexico, the geopolitical stakes are between 2 different projects: the American alliance for the missiles shields project that encompass Canada and Mexico and has been rejected numerous times since the war in Iraq, and the project from Chavez with his alternative against the free trade, although Obrador is more progressist.

The repercussions for Obrador as a 2nd President on November are unkown to me and alot of us; it never happened in Mexican and Democracy history. There has been cases of political coexistence in Europe (France) with different functions for the share of power; we could imagine that Obrador would impose himself as a Prime Minister meaning less power than Calderon or possibily, a more accurate scenerio such as pro Obrador states and pro Calderon States, meaning States working in an independent way from each other.

What will happen like many countries have been doing lately (Venezuela, Thailand) is a capital rapatriation from the US to Mexico and different boycotts coming from the political parties. There has been also a new discovery lately of an oilfield in Mexico ... but I can't find the link grrr. I think Mexico nationalized his oil production in the 80s but it still has to import it to satisfy its demand.

The instability from Mexico comes from the perceptions of the NAFTA trade since 94 that did not improve the situation. Mexico also lives from his expatriated citizens that work in the US and send the money back to their family. I wrote about this problem on my blog a few months ago that the deportation of Mexicans was a bad timing with the mexican elections; the US national policy contributed indirectly to the instability of this country, and will accelerate it within 2007 by militarizing the 4,000 miles of the frontier.

CB, I have read the works of both Marx and Lenin and have never seen where they advocated for"judicial corruption backed by the military "or "entrenched politicians". As for "state control of industry" this would be fine if the State were democratically controlled by the people, as Marx DID advocate.(actually the state would "wither away" under these conditions but we will leave that aside)The fact is, industry and the state are merged and controlled by an elite oligarchy allied with US interests.In Tijuana alone you will find 45 major US,Asian and European firms exploiting cheap labor and lack of unions or environmental regulation. Hardly Marxism/lite.

In Oaxaca today,a burgeoning endogenous social movement is under assault by the corporate driven right wing.Most people in that state still live without electricity or running water and have dark skin.

Troutsky,When you're right, you're right. Enjoyed your take and it certainly sounds as if Mexico is another victim of US interests over successful reform. The US is quickly working its way toward a retaliation to its policies that will cause us great pain. Sad indeed.

State control of industry makes it socialist. One thing that amuses me is that unlike capitalists, collectivists like to seperate theory from practice. Those that have lived under that tyranny don't have that luxury. Theories may be elegant, like evolution, but if in practice it doesn't work out, for all of its high sounding rhetoric, no one can explain the Cambrian explosion, how you get from fish to amphibian, irreducible complexity, how sexual reproduciton outpaces asexual reproduction, the "arms race" and on and on and on....but the worker must control the means of production...lol!

Wood's party is inside the PRD is it not? The problem of the disconnection of inidigenous, campesinos, workers and students looks like its finally being addressed in Oaxaca. Poor teachers in the leadership marching to MC to join forces with the masses behind Obrador, while those left behind prepare to defend their powerbase from Fox's repression, vindicates marxism 1000%.All we need is a revolutionary Trotskyist party with a program for armed 'APPOs' everywhere independent of Obrador and the union bureaurcracy, that builds for a general strike, splits the army and takes power.

It is also news that no one can explain how fish came to be amphibians.CB has been reading The Black Box by a believer named Behe. (say that ten times fast)

The larger question is how do you bring development to the people in a region like Oaxaca? Despite oil wealth Mexico has no money for infrastructure or rural development or social services because the money goes to servicing the national debt and paying for a corrupt bureaucracy. The elites escape taxation as do transnational corporations.Obrador was going to change those priorities, hence ,the concerted opposition.

Im glad that the Oaxaca Commune has been mentioned and in Mexico that is one of the most revolutionary actions that has taken place in a long time.

I want to have my Comrade Nico Solon post a comment. He was down in Mexico for the CND and the creation of the so-called Dual Power. I dont trust Obrador thats the truth. He is a ex-priista and a fake-leftist as Marcos has stated but the reality is that he has mobilized millions of people and we have to find the best way to get to those people and educate them about the limitations of the PRD and lead to a revolutionary position, like the one the sistahs and brothas have taken in Oaxaca.

While the Bush administration is bugged down in the Middle-East for a very long time with its "war on terror", it is the whole latino american continent that is reforming the system and its institutions for its people from Venezuela to Argentina.

You said: "the deportation of Mexicans was a bad timing with the mexican elections".

What deportations?

It happened in Houston, Dallas, Vegas, and I've seen the story on a mexican channel. The ICE raided stores that employed people without work paper. A lot of them have been deported, buses in Houston area were full.

There are two ways to look at Marcos' position. Either it was "infantile leftism" as Lenin put it, for not making possible gains electorally or it was necessary for Obrador to fail to further the true revolutionary agenda. I am not informed enough to know. I would be very interested to hear the thoughts of comrade Nico Solon.

I posted a comment 3 threads below (The siege on Lebanon continuesbut for some reasons it only shows up if you hit reply, also I am going to post it here.

I think it is a big problem in the US when people and their allies think they have to deliver other countries from their dictator and even democratically elected government, even if they have to kill a part of their population to remove any unfriendly sympathizers. We keep forgetting that our western governments keep funding terrorism (US against Iran, or France for Hamas, ... etc).

Here in the US we are allowed to criticize other nations but we barely can criticize our own institutions, we think or at least the US government thinks that many people in the rest of the world want to be like us; which is wrong, arrogant and dangerous.

Also to the question about "revolution" which means "peaceful changes for me" I think French are more revolutionnary than Americans, it is mainly du to an historical context. I belong to an intercultural thinktank and here is what an American guy living in France has to say about that:

The French spend much more time, energy and bile criticizing the French government and its policies than they do the U.S. or any other country! That is part of the revolutionary heritage. They would be even more vocal if the level of external criticism were greater, but few non-French seem concerned about French policies, even when they should be. I, for one, wish Africans and other people of the world would make a bigger issue out of France's post-colonial policies, as egregious in Africa today as they have been at any time since post-WWII decolonisation. But of course no one thinks or seems to care much aboutAfrica (except when there's a genocide as in Rwanda or Darfur; and this endemic indifference should be seen as a contributing factor to apolitical culture where genocide is always possible).

The major difference with the U.S. is that, in France, criticizing thegovernment, venerable French institutions (such as the Grandes Ecoles)or businesses is never confused with criticizing the country, the culture or the people. That's what's extraordinary about the U.S.: the facility with which criticism of government policy is labeled as hatred of the country and its people. This is, of course, equally frustrating for U.S. citizens within the U.S. who are opposed to the current politics, but they seem to find that reflex a natural part of the political landscape, even though they themselves are victims of it.

Today's asymmetry in levels of criticism is linked to the fact that the U.S. is by far more active in other people's affairs than any other country, and therefore the behavior of the U.S. government is an issue they feel increasingly compelled to address. It's no coincidence that the level of criticism has increased radically in the last six years. Can anyone seriously pretend that this criticism is directed against"America" rather than against the particular policies of this government and the image of the U.S. it has decided to project to the world?

I imagine that, as you point out, the tradition is different in LatinAmerica (and I remember it being so in Mexico in the 1970s) as well asChina, where the tradition of authoritarian governments had been strong for many decades. But the French people -- just like the Indians, to take another example -- are very outspoken in their criticism of their government. Then there are the Italians (especially under Berlusconi) and the British. Europeans generally don't feel that they will be branded as traitors if they oppose the current politics.

I see the hypersensitivity of the U.S. to external (and internal)criticism as a symptom of its longstanding insecurity about national identity due to the lack of a serious notion of roots.

Don't forget to check out my latest video on "terrorism readiness in the US". It is a controversial video for companies being prepared for terrorist attacks. It was linked today on www.reopen911.org, I had to put a disclaimer for not confusing people :)

You said: "The outgoing Mexican President, Vicente Fox, has called the fence shameful, and compared it to the Berlin Wall."

So what? He can say whatever he wants.. it does'nt make it so. The fence is a start to ensure our sovereignty as a nation. Up to this point, US agricorporate greed has made sure that none of our immigration laws are enforced by buying off both the Dems and Repubs. In this way ensuring a ready supply of cheap labor for generations. This is the Wallmart approach. Cheap labor and let the state and federal government (us) pay for health, education and social costs. This fence is at least a start to stop the massive influx of illegal aliens (approx 18 million in last 15 years) from invading our sovereign national integrity.Also, Vicente Fox conveniently forgets to mention that Mexico's deportations of illegal aliens and their policies in this regard are much more severe and draconian than currently in the USA. Please check how many illegal Latin American "immigrants" Mexico deported in the last few years at great expense. In order to save a few pesos, he is more than happy to have these illegals just keep on going into the good old USA. Do you really believe he is saying this because he is a "nice guy" and cares about these poor people looking for a better life? Let's consider the REAL implications and motivations of what foreign heads of state say and do and not blindly agree with anti-USA sentiment. In recent polls, an overwhelming majority of US citizens demanded stronger enforcement and security of their border.

Mexico's problem is not NAFTA, the CIA, Neo-Cons or capitalism. It is a problem that should not be ignored. These are the laws of reasons that defy the laws of economics in the XXIst century since economics are far from the vision of Adam Smith and far beyond the balance of demand and offer in the sense that globalization does not mean free trade, because prices are only determined by the ones who are subordinated to the ones who created these laws, thus creating a position of leadership. In other words it means that Canada is not able to sell its wood to the US for the price it would be required for, and Mexico cannot sell its bottles of Tequila because it is the US trade that determines the price and not the balance between offer and demand.Free trade does not mean equity, free trade only assumes profits to others, it is a way to increase profit margins to expand inside market profitability under the control of prices policies dictatorship. Free trade should be fair with solidarity in creating cultural diversity and not homogenization. Failing to do that will create other alternatives. Anyway we are not anymore in times of capitalism, we live in times of neoliberalism, when countries do not benefit from economics diplomacy, but prefer to oppose their will under military might. After all Bush is only a thief who got robbed by another thief and decided to rob somebody else to compensate the loss of his money :)

To shed a little light on things allow me to elaborate on some of the requests that have come to my attention. The Comrade Renegade has asked me to expand on the phenomenon that is Sub-Comandante Marcos... In order to do so it is precise to clear up a couple of pre-conceived notions that many have. The Zapatista movement also known as the EZLN is rooted democraticaly in the decision of several different pueblos towns and municipials of Chiapas, although many think that Marcos is the designated leader he is not, the Zapatista society is a very democratic process and Marcos is only an ellected official charged with outside communication as the spokesman and also charged with command over all military operations. Now albeit the miss-conceived notions surrounding him cause for his image to be lifted onto a pedestal and perhaps furthers the myths of grandure sparked by his image. Now if we are to examine his actual stature politically we will come to find a petty-bougeous figure that has left his position as a profesor at a promenent university to re-instate was left of the former idigenous guerilla movements and create the EZLN, he was not alone in this effort it has been shown that he was accompanied by atleast 12 other figures who were already prodominately known in this south-east state of Mexico. Now in day Marcos has become somewhat of a Demi-God in Mexico's leftist movement as far as his mythical position goes, however there is some weight in Comrade Renegade's assumption that he remains somewhere in the gama of infantile leftism. The reason being that although his work since his radicaliztion somewhere in the early eighties has been leftist, it is not leftist in the sense that it works to create the type of result that our fore-fathers Lenin and Trotsky would have strived for and prescribed plans for. We can see that Marcos's leftism is not that of a working class nature, and certainly not vanguard in any way, shape, or form. The Other Campaign was a feeble attempt to rally the left around an Idol figure, however this process has been slowed by the fact that Marcos(and I say Marcos because in the case of the Other Campaign, he does seem to be the predominent leader)requires those also wishing to pursue a leftist front to surcum to the mold that he has prescribed those not subscribing to this system seem to be either left out or ignored when times of support are needed. Although he has perscribed a democratic process for the creation of the Other Campaign, this has not been followed and many are feeling the the capricious Marcos has some hidden agenda within the Othe Campaign..

Allow me to move on to another item that I must aquest based on the request of another Comrade.

The CND.

The CND although somewhat note-worthy does not deserve much attention as we can readily that AMLO is not a genuine leftist but only a populist using leftist issues as a front to gain support for a quite beorgoues movement. May I remind that before the elections his reteric sounded Calderon and after his popularity seemed to diminish his retoric became more and more left oriented. The CND was AMLO final move to try to create some type of legal support for his movement after his attempts in Mexico higher institutional bodies did little to further his claims to victory. The CND was strategically planned for AMLO to get everything that he wanted out of the leftist movement with out having and further obligation to the demands of the LEFT that supported him, the majority of the resolutions were AMLO related and those resolutions related to the calls of the left were mere tokens that would not warrant any further participation by AMLO, the commisions that were resolved to be created are consistant of all members of the three party alliance, all of which having nothing to do with the real left. in conclusion and albeit short the CND may have created a blip on the leftist radar but it can be easily dismissed as just another feeble populist stunt..

Now APPO..

APPO is where the real revolutionary potential is in Mexico, providing not only a revolutionary program for the creation of the first autonomous state in Mexico, but also creating a prime example for how the fight should be fought, not in the voting booth but in the streets..ACTION ACTION ACTION.. many are rallying around Oaxaca's cause and I sit patiently everyday waiting for more information from Oaxaca.. Viva La Revolucion..

I'm in contact with an organization called the Free People's Movement, who are very active in Latin America. They email me and others on their mailing list about protests they are holding and the revolutionary situations in various countries. I got an email last night which explained about the Oaxaca commune. Apparently the Mexican government is planning military action against the APPO, which is the governing body right now in Oaxaca. The FPM is planning a rally in New York at the Mexican Consulate to protest that. If anyone is interested, email me at leftyhenry@yahoo.com and I'll send you the info

Thanks Nico for taking the time to give such a detailed account.Revolution is not a simple process and there is so much analysis that needs to be done on the one hand and, as you say, so much ACTION that needs to take place once the structure of forces becomes clear.I see these events in Oaxaca linked to the Caracazoa of Venezuela in 1989.When class lines become clearly demarcated the struggle can take on a popular, electoral form.